


Vertigo

by mem0



Series: Klelijah Translations [4]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Incest, M/M, Romance, Translation, not explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 13:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20228383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mem0/pseuds/mem0
Summary: One thousand years, fourteen psychotherapists, two pairs of cufflinks and endless, sickeningly endless, perfect circles.Translation from the Russian (перевод с русского).





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaejandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaejandra/gifts).
  * A translation of [Вертиго](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1806829) by [jaejandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaejandra/pseuds/jaejandra). 

Elijah arrives first, and Klaus almost curses: he was the only thing needed to complete the picture. Of course, Elijah is always needed to complete the picture. But usually no one knows that.

It’s pretty boring behind bars, and Klaus almost decides to run off: the walls start to weigh on his reason and pride. He even lazily considers how to call a policeman with keys to him without destroying half the station in the process.

But Elijah arrives first; he appears in the bright corridor in front of the cell, horrifyingly, revoltingly perfect, inspiring the endless gnawing desire to kill or force submission. His flawless dark-grey three-piece suit, what a damned _cliché, _and hell, even the word is an onomatopoeia of sleeves crisp with starch, of near crackling suits, perfectly fitted to figure, of the squeak of expensive English threads in the hands of the best tailors and their apprentices, and all together it’s an ode to Elijah Mikaelson. Even the French language composes words in his honor.

_The goddamned planet spins because of him, and the universe around it._

Klaus is left alongside them to parcel out the radii, doubled and multiplied by pi, of their orbit.

“You lost,” Elijah announces plainly, adjusting his perfect, snow-white cuffs, unfastening an agate cufflink and fastening it once more with mocking indifference. The cufflinks are gold. A gift. Unfortunately, not from Klaus. His gifts don’t linger for long in Elijah’s life, just like he himself.

* * *

“Your world orbits around your brother in an interesting manner.”

Klaus rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to be rude, but, what – was she really serious?

“All your attempts to free yourself come to nothing, only because every time you’re just attacking the framework. Without realizing that breaking those walls only means exiting onto a new level of orbit. Change your approach to the situation. He doesn’t support you.”

Klaus stood up, trying to calm the adrenaline rising in his blood. Over the course of so many centuries, he could have gotten used to it, but Klaus had never accustomed himself to saying “no” to his body’s reactions. He walked to the wall, where an endless number of postgraduate diplomas were hanging, including, of course, the most important one. From Oxford. The best psychotherapist in the world. What great grades you got, _girl. _Klaus turned and looked her in the eyes.

Of course, at around sixty years old, she’s no girl. But she’s also not the best psychotherapist in the world. In the most recent 90s, some pretty French woman explained the same mildly interesting thought to Klaus in half the time. And she was a commonplace graduate of the Sorbonne.

“You must understand, Nicolas. Can I call you that?”

He shrugged his shoulders in a sign of agreement and hid his fingers in the sleeves of his hoody, enjoying the effect it created and guessing how many triggers he was setting off for her. A hoody on a man around thirty – infantile. Her telephone number and five paid sessions – money and status. The flexible time of their meetings – no job. A bad boy from a respectable family, where the elder brother was in charge. The desire to hide his fingers in his sleeves – the desire to defend himself.

“And so, Nicolas. I see that my statement has offended you. But he really doesn’t support you. You are uncomfortable (_Point one to Madame De Lancy!_) You always tried to fight for your parents’ attention, but it always seemed to you that they held more love for the one who was more normative, behaved as his station behooved: your,” – a pause – “brother.”

No, she seriously said the word “behooved?” Klaus shook his head and mechanically wiped his eyes with his fingers.

“You wanted to free yourself from their disapproval. And at the same time you sought for his approval. He was and remains your authority, you understand? But that doesn’t work in the opposite direction. He doesn’t care about you. I am getting the impression that he himself is trying to undo the complicated ties of your relationship. Allow him to do so. Don’t stay in his life. Go away to wherever you’d like, you have the means and the opportunity. Nothing keeps you here.” (_Oh, two-zero and three-zero, what a deep psychoanalysis, worthy only and solely of Oxford.) _“Occupy yourself with something interesting to you, don’t wait for your brother’s approval. Start to build your own life.” (_And that’s a strike! The stands are delighted!_)

Klaus mechanically nodded, muttered “thanks” and turned away in order to leave forever, but she had apparently not finished.

“Wait. You want to run away again. Don’t do that. Nicolas, I have all reason…” Klaus raised his head, having stilled on the threshold. “All reason to presume that he doesn’t love you. He doesn’t need you as a brother.”

He felt a lump rise in his throat. The Frenchwoman had not allowed herself to go so far.

“You understand, he doesn’t love you. He loved you once, but not anymore. Elijah doesn’t…”

“Don’t say his name. You haven’t earned it.”

Her neck snapped between his fingers, and Klaus dropped her onto the floor. He wanted there to be some sort of use to these meetings. So that at least he would stop killing these useless idiots, who had finished their studies at departments with various levels of success and were now trying to engineer souls, both vampire and human. So far, it wasn’t successful. Klaus had lost count.

* * *

“You lost!” Klaus laughed, strolling by the iron cell.

Elijah sat within, unshakeable, collected, but clearly almost having lost hope for salvation. His flawless shirt had grayed, lost its color, his hair had gotten tangled, and he didn’t look like an original at all. Rather, he seemed like a frightened, four-hundred year-old boy.

“Niklaus,” he said quietly, looking up.

Not a word more, not a word less, full of the awareness of his own dignity. No matter that he was brutally thrown here to die, or rather – to desiccate, no matter that he really had fallen into serious trouble, probably, for the first time in his whole life. No matter that he thought that no one would come for him.

“And that’s it, brother?”

“I knew that you’d come.”

It took force of will for Klaus to catch his suddenly racing breath. He turned the key in his hands, thinking that he needed to open the damned lock, let _him _go, and run off. He froze right next to the bars.

“But that’s…”

Elijah finally stood up, slipped his fingers through the bars and looked at him, calmly and attentively:

“It’s our game. Commit a crime, surrender to the authorities, and escape from behind bars before the other arrives to help.”

“But you…”

“I was simply caught, yes. Apparently, we still have pretty powerful enemies.”

Klaus almost recoiled from the bars, feeling his head spinning and complete madness setting in.

“But we…”

“Swore to turn each other’s lives into a living hell. Yes.”

Klaus raised his gaze to Elijah’s calm face and felt that he was about to break apart.

“No games. No more games!” he shouted, tugging the lock to himself, feeling the blood rushing in his head, his fingers itching to kill, to break Elijah’s neck, to dominate him, to enclose him in a coffin – to do everything to make him his own. So that Elijah wouldn’t dare love him. So that he wouldn’t dare wait after the worst of their fights. So that he wouldn’t dare _believe _that Klaus himself still loved him.

“Thanks, for…”

And Klaus gave a loud howl, snapping the other’s neck to its side, picking up his body, carrying it further from those damned madmen, who dared to hurt _him, _threaten _him, _lock _him _up for certain destruction.

That’s all there was to do – leave Elijah to come to his senses in the best lodging house within a hundred miles and never see him again.

* * *

“We haven’t been playing for seven centuries,” Klaus answers just as plainly.

“Then why were you waiting for me?” Elijah responds, a little out of place, just slightly imperfectly, staring at the wall and speaking, obviously, with it, not in the slightest with Klaus.

“I wasn’t waiting for you,” Klaus starts to justify himself, but then he remembers the best psychotherapist in the world, and how he sat by her cooling body for half a day until the assistant finally sounded the alarm, how the flashing car lights came for him, how they locked him up here.

Exactly according to the rules of the game.

And Klaus suddenly smiles. Unexpectedly, even for himself. Angrily, irritably and uncertainly.

“I didn’t need you.”

“And, of course, you weren’t waiting for me to come,” Elijah echoes, completely seriously.

“Of course.”

“Nik,” Elijah suddenly says, and it grates on, tortures and leads Klaus on at the same time.

As though there had been neither war nor hatred between them, as though there hadn’t been conversations and rules of engagement. As though they could still talk and call each other the same things as they had hundreds of years before. Klaus rocks onto his feet, presses against the bars and looks at him, thirsty and soliciting.

_After all, he only killed that damn old lady because she dared to declare that Elijah – didn’t – love – him. _

“Nik,” Elijah repeats very calmly, looking at him in response, perfectly turning from a perfect profile to face him perfectly. He’s quiet for a moment, then asks:

“Why did you kill fourteen of Freud’s disciples?”

And Klaus wants to laugh until his cheeks hurt, because that’s not what he expected. Freud’s disciples, Jesus Christ. Not “why don’t you trust me?”, which he could have answered with a lot of honest bull. Not even “but I expected you that time six-hundred and fifty-three years ago, why didn't you expect me?”, which he could rebuff easily and naturally. Elijah asks about Freud’s disciples. But Klaus realizes that he’s on his last breath and is losing on all fronts in this eternal war.

He grabs the bars with his fingers and squeezes them so much that his knuckles whiten, not completely hidden by the sleeves of his hated hoody. The bars – unlike Elijah – give way and moan under his pressure, filling the building with a hardly audible rumble.

“Are you following me?”

Elijah straightens his cufflinks a second time for the last five minutes, and Klaus wants to swear with everything he has, just simply wants to die, because he’s still wearing that slut Katherine’s gift, while he has forgotten the other sapphire ones, insane antiques by now. He didn’t wear them even once.

It’s quiet in the station.

“If you’re having any problems…”

And Klaus groans aloud after all from the unbearable pain that grips his whole being, his whole body, his whole damn soul. Elijah starts, twitches, looks up. Not perfectly at all.

But Klaus doesn’t care, he’s tired of reading into his gazes, presuming, and orbiting with the planet and universe around that shining deity. He presses his forehead into the bars, only in order to reduce the radius of his orbit and looks, looks, looks at those warm eyes, little wrinkles, cheekbones. At his own personal madness. And it takes him on –

– and rolls back, as though having run up against a wall. It changes it’s perfect disposition. It doesn’t maintain its symmetry, and Klaus wonders idiotically if gravitation is the thing at fault in all of this.

“Then what?” he asks hoarsely, “I went to them. Freud’s disciples. When did you change your taste, Elijah? What disciples? What fucking Freud? What’s with the cheap euphemisms, wasn’t it you that scribbled away for half the eighteenth century under the name…”

Elijah finally maintains his gaze, openly tugging nervously at a cufflink for the third time, and interrupts:

“You could have…”

“I couldn’t have come to you!” Klaus roars.

“We…”

“There was no us!”

“I…”

“You never needed me as a brother! You never needed _me__._”

Elijah shakes his head, raises his right hand, as though defending himself from the accusations, raises it to his forehead – and is silent once more.

Klaus’s lid finally blows, and he bitterly spits out:

“Do you remember the seventeenth century? Since you’ve already forgotten the eighteenth. Do you remember my gift?”

Elijah raises his eyebrows. Of course, he _doesn’t _remember.

“Yeah, that’s right! And you say to go to you. My present to you…”

“Here it is, your present!” Elijah bellows angrily, and somehow suddenly offended, and Klaus’s jaw almost drops; Elijah raises his hand, almost shoving it through the bars.

Klaus looks at the cufflinks and cannot understand. Agathe and yellow gold are Katherine’s gift. Sapphire and white are his.

The electric light finally strengthens the dark blue shade of the stones, and even there isn’t even the faintest trace of yellow visible from the sunset reflecting in the hall window. The breath is knocked out of Klaus, and he doesn’t know what to do or what to say.

Elijah’s hands are visible shaking while he tries to fit the key in the lock, they are both silent, and Klaus really hopes that his brother will snap his neck, just as he himself did so mercifully the last time.

“You destroyed a pleiad,” oh, what lofty language! Well of course, all the languages of the world are made in honor of Elijah, after all! “of leading psychotherapists. For what?”

Elijah swings the door open to let him pass. He moves away to the side.

The blood is pounding again in Klaus’s head – and he thinks of fleeing away from the conversation at top speed. He takes a step and freezes, incapable of looking away.

“You should have talked to Freud himself, idiot,” Elijah exhales, and looks at him completely normally.

“I did,” Klaus laughs bitterly, almost not reacting at his slip of the tongue, at the fact that for the first time in his life he’s slipped and landed in a zugzwang**, **where any following question will lead him to his inevitable end; nevertheless mentally noting that the world’s best women smile at Elijah, while its most expensive whores fall at Klaus’s knees, that the French language caresses Elijah’s ears, while ugly, barking German is in store for Klaus.

“You spoke with Freud,” Elijah asks again, no longer so clearly leaving the path to escape open, for the first time in his life _stopping _Klaus from leaving.

Klaus shrugs his shoulders. In a sign of agreement, how else.

“And, what happened?”

“He died,” Klaus sluggishly brushes himself off. “He was the only worthwhile one out there, and he died. And he didn’t want to take my blood. And…”

“What did he say?” Elijah pronounces threateningly.

Klaus takes a breath, raises his gaze, looks at the eyes–wrinkles–cheekbones and lets out the tired truth:

“That I love you. Not like a brother. Incest, and all that. A different type of morality, and all that. We, all that…”

“Old fucker,” Elijah throws out with irritation, and Klaus actually starts.

_It’s as though we’ve swapped places._

“He’s not a fucker, El, and it’s true.”

Elijah closes his eyes for a second. Klaus feels a dark hole opening within himself and wants to leave, but Elijah is taking up the whole passageway; he would only be able to slam against him and stop, meeting resistance.

Elijah shakes his head from side to side, finally, it seems, calming himself. Regaining control and becoming absolute. Perfect. Grandiose. Klaus allows himself to close his eyes and hold his breath. There’s a buzzing in his head, the event horizon is broken, he’s flying into the abyss, what to do next…

Elijah raises a palm and pulls Klaus to him by the back of the head, touching their cheeks together, and stills.

Klaus is ready to scream and kill, but he stands still, like the worst of fools. He lost. He lost everything forever.

It’s probably only after a thousand years have gone by that Elijah suddenly turns his head and glides his lips down across his cheek, it seems, to Klaus’s mouth, and there, for the first time in those thousand years and the next thousand, Klaus is terribly, genuinely frightened, and can do nothing but tangle his fingers in Elijah’s wrists, clinging to dark-blue sapphire and waiting for another thousand years until their lips finally meet.


End file.
